BELL, DROBOTS & REC Advanced Robotics Competition (AVR) a Success in Maryland

Article written and created by PR WEB

This is the first year that the Ideaventions team “Daedalus”, comprised of students in grades 7 – 11, participated in the Bell AVR program. This year’s theme simulates an Emergency Firefighting situation, and as described on the robotics education website, “Students use hands-on, industry-standard tools to design, build, and compete against teams from around the US with the most advanced aerial robotics technology available today.” 

Ideaventions Academy “Daedalus” team from Reston, Virginia, won first place in the northeast regional Bell Advanced Vertical Robotics (AVR) competitions held on November 19 and 20th in Owings Mills, MD, earning them a spot at the National AVR competition on December 3 in Arlington, Texas.

The competition requires teams to build a large drone, incorporate thermal and visual sensing, design and build a system to gather and dispense “water” (25mm plastic balls) from the drone, and fly during the competition to accomplish tasks and earn points. A second drone and ground vehicle are programmed by the team to autonomously navigate through the game course, while three small manually controlled robots complete tasks to earn additional points. The teams prepare an engineering notebook and present their designs and game strategy to a panel of industry expert judges.

“This competition gave students a chance to experience real-world engineering to analyze and solve problems using aerial robotics,” said Ryan Heitz, Head of School. “By adopting a systems engineering approach, the team tackled complex challenges and gained inspiration to become future technologists.”

For more information on the Bell AVR competition, visit: https://www.roboticseducation.org/teams/bell-advanced-vertical-robotics/Before we digress into full-on Jetsons comparisons, let’s get definitions out of the way. A drone can simply be described as a flying robot. It’s an aircraft sans onboard pilot, typically controlled by someone on the ground. Drones are often envisioned as automated machines that fly without human input or guidance.

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